


The Never Star's Bounty

by orphan_account



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Angst and Tragedy, F/F, F/M, Geniuses, M/M, Rebellion, Seriously Messed Up Themes, Starfleet Loses, War, bad shit goes down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:21:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2487578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was no hope for Starfleet or it's Federation after Vulcan fell.  They were all just dying slowly, waiting for the right phaser blast.<br/>All space had left were stars and ghosts.<br/>But those stars and ghosts sure could put up a hell of a fight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Never Star's Bounty

Screaming wasn’t uncommon in the streets—not since the repair droids had failed and left the com system busted (although Jim had scavenged a lot out of them, honestly; he’d repaired an entire hull with one of the speakers pressed thin and reinforced with T-mesh). Screaming was the only way to get your message across anyway. The officers never gave a shit, but it sure made the person getting dragged off feel better.

Jim had made a habit out of keeping quiet. If no one noticed him, no one made him get a little more permanently tranquil via terminal head wound.

And he was perfectly quiet now, ID drumming hard against his ribcage and his legs pumping. He jabbed his way through the crowd—so many _people_. Jim knew half of them hadn’t seen the light of day in a long time, because life was the only thing still smuggled on Tarsus. There wasn’t any food left.

Jim tried not to get crushed by them, and sprinted for home.

An officer’s boot came down hard on his foot and he took an elbow to the side of the head that left him blinking stars, but then he was shoving past the familiar canvas hanging over the entrance of his hideout. It was mostly built from scrap metal, but it had kept the rain out pretty well the past few months and kept the officers out too, cause Thomas had thought to cover it in mud and you had to be small and bendy to get down the entrance—“the Warren”, like Shinya said, because yeah, that was better than being human these days.

Heart thundering, Jim crawled off of his belly and got to his feet. He wasn’t very big (yet), so he didn’t have to stoop. It was dark enough that he hissed blindly, “Guys? It’s Jim.”

“Jim!” Pavel’s thickly accented voice, and crap, he sounded terrified out of his mind. Someone lit a dry flare and threw the Warren into artificial green light. Exactly twelve children were clustered around Jim, and they looked like a collection of bones. It wasn’t just the light. They were pale from lack of sun, and they were starving. Everyone was starving.

Jim was glad to see that a couple of them were putting away weapons. The kids were on their A game already. Good—they’d need that.

“Guys,” he said again, crouching and reaching a hand out to mess up Pavel’s curls because he was close and younger and shaking a little bit. “We gotta go. Can’t stay here any longer.”

In the back, Ejeihn’k closed his eyes, cranial ridges shifting with distress. Jim could read the older boy well enough—Ejeihn’k thought they were screwed. Which they quite possibly were, but it wasn’t like Jim wasn’t about to suggest they try to survive in the forest. Everyone knew how well that went, let alone for a ragtag bunch of children trying to hack it with stolen phasers and modified welding torches.

“To the ship?” Rurah asked, voice very small. “I mean—all this noise—the ship is here, isn’t it?” Her eyes pleaded with Jim. “The Fleet relief ship finally came, right?”

“It’s not coming,” Jim shook his head before he could stop himself. “It’s not gonna be here.” And there wasn’t time, but everyone in the room was looking at him and he owed them this much, at the very least. “The Fleet lost, OK? War’s over. Kaput. Done—”

 _Shut up, Kirk_ , he thought, and with effort, succeeded.

No one cried or anything like that. Jim was pretty sure they were all beyond that kind of reaction. It was like ‘oh, are we still in hell? Funny thing about that.’ The other kids just stared at him, taking in the knowledge that their side had just lost the war.

“The Alliance…” Shinya began, only to trail off just as quickly. No one wanted to think about that. Jim shuddered, and pulled away from Pavel.

“Did anyone try to get you guys out of here yet?”

“One of the officers was shouting,” Nisk shrugged. “We didn’t answer or nothing. We know the rules.” Yeah, Jim had heard those officers himself. He usually hid on town hall’s third floor gutter and listened through the cracks in the window frame whenever he needed information. Today, he could hear the shouting from the streets. the officers were calling all colonists together to be evacuated—least that was what they were saying. Jim didn’t buy it. Kodos had started blowing up escape pods as soon as he caught people trying to flee Tarsus. It would be a miracle if any were left.

Jim didn’t know what Kodos wanted all those people together for, but the Alliance had been clear; anyone who didn’t surrender immediately and tried to leave the planet was getting blown to fuck.

Jim wasn’t about to explain this to the kids, though. Pavel, perceptive as always, was squinting at Jim curiously. “You haff another way off ze planet?”

“Yeah I do,” Jim told them, and waited for a beat to see if anyone wanted to question him. Jim certainly wasn’t the oldest kid here. He needed their full cooperation to pull this off, so if someone was going to challenge him, they needed to do it now.

Jim’s leadership had also kept them alive for the past six months, though. So there was that.

He gave a sharp nod when the moment passed, silence unbroken. “OK, here’s how we do this. Kevin, Yvonne, I want you two to go run and get Harry and Mrs. Wembley’s people. Tell them to get themselves and their dearest to the scrapyard without making anybody curious enough to follow them. And that goes double for you two.” He shot the pair a hard look. “You’re fast and you’re smart, but if you think you’re about to get caught by an officer, leave the outsiders and get yourselves to the scrapyard instead. Clear?”

“You got it, Kirk,” Kevin said with a broad grin. He bounded to his feet, Yvonne on his heels. Both of them looked excited by the challenge. They slapped palms with Jim for luck on their way out and then Jim turned to the rest of his group.

“Get as much food and water as you can carry. Leave everything else except your weapons, and head to the scrapyard too. Here,” Jim reached over Ejeihn’k and Nisk’s heads to grab four of their water flasks and sling them around his neck. “I’ll meet you there,” he told them, leaving them to pack up on their own.

He stuck his head out from under the canvas. All the adults were stampeding by. Nobody was paying attention to a bunch of undersized kids.

Perfect.

He got his legs moving again.

\----

Wherever the officers were herding the colonists, it wasn’t anywhere near the scrapyard—nobody went to the scrapyard if they could help it. It was full of toxic radiation and rat-infested, crumbling ship parts. And, of course, Jim’s secret projects. Jim was fluttering around his gently humming creation, sealing the last of its hatches when Kevin showed up. The other kids were sprawled out around him, watching the outsiders approach. Harry and at least six other adults had just arrived. Jim looked up immediately.

“We weren’t followed,” Kevin reported. Harry raised a hand in fairly uncertain greeting. Jim waved back, not entirely comfortable himself. Harry was good people and all, but there were unspoken rules about this kind of thing. They were different groups and mixing them just made it harder if one group fell because you didn’t help. You couldn’t. You could only worry about your own people—

Still, it meant a lot that Harry had shown up. Jim was nine years old and a leader he was not, but at least Harry trusted him more than Kodos.

Jim was going to break the rules, but he still nodded to Keeris and Alpha while the adults were gawking at the functioning space shuttle Jim had pulled out of thin air. _If they make any moves you don’t like, you shoot them._

Keeris nodded back. _Or if they try to take any of our food or water._

Alpha just twisted her mouth. _Why don’t we just shoot them now?_

Jim ignored Alpha’s general people skills and hopped off the top of his shuttle. “Hey, Harry,” he said. “We’re getting off-planet. Thought you might want to tag along with us instead of Kodos.”

“Sure thing, midget,” snorted Vorah, Harry’s Cylion boyfriend. Jim grimaced back at him, because while Vorah may have had three feet and about a hundred pounds on Jim, Jim was faster. And armed.

“Jim,” Harry said, still gaping at the shuttle. “How in the hell did you get your mitts on an actual shuttlecraft?”

“Kodos threw a bunch of them here when he was done blowing them up,” Jim responded, glancing around Harry’s hip to memorize the faces of the grown-ups he’d brought along. “I repaired them when I had time, you know, just stuff. Thought it might come in handy.”

It was just luck that the shuttle was done. Jim had been thinking of making a break for it for a while now—there wasn’t enough food. That wasn’t going to change. There wasn’t a relief ship, and Kodos wasn’t even trying to keep everybody alive.

 _Not_ , Jim thought bitterly, _That we’re any better_.

Yvonne came skittering into the scrapyard like a beetle, gasping for breath as she scrambled around the adults. “Mrs. Wembley?” Jim asked urgently, but Yvonne was already shaking her head. So either Mrs. Wembley had turned Jim down or Yvonne hadn’t been able to reach them at all. It didn’t matter. Jim’s mind immediately flew to a few other groups of people he would have wanted to help… But there was no time for that. The Alliance was coming.

He clapped Yvonne’s shoulder anyway, in quiet reassurance. _I know you tried_. “Alright,” he said, heading back towards the ship.

Harry and his people didn’t follow, didn’t move. They knew their manners; they also knew that the kids sitting quietly around them would shoot them down at the first sign of a threat.

“I want you guys to all get in here—but before that, get rid of anything non-essential. Take the food and water you have on you. Leave behind medicine, any clothes you don’t need—and weapons.” The last item made Jim’s stomach twist sick, but he just had to keep reminding himself that Harry was a good guy, and Jim had seen the proof. The other kids were looking at him, surprised. After all, Jim had made them promise until they were blue in the face to never get caught without an equalizer on their person.

Now Jim looked away from them. “Do it,” he said. “We—“ _we actually could keep the extra weight, if Mrs. Wembley isn’t coming_ “—dammit.” Jim swore, dragging a hand through his hair as his eyes got hot. He pointed to Harry. “You. You and Kevin, get everybody on board and make sure they’re not carrying anything they’re not supposed to.”

Harry looked inquisitive, but he nodded and turned to his people. Kevin frowned and pressed close enough to whisper, “Jim?”

“If I don’t get on this shuttle,” Jim said in a rush, “You’re in charge. You and Harry. You said you knew how to pilot?”

“My dad showed me,” Kevin said automatically, bewildered. “Why? Aren’t you getting on?”

Jim hissed through his teeth and jerked a thumb at the shuttle. “’Sides the thirteen of us, it carries twenty-five. With Harry’s crew, that makes nineteen seats extra.” Kevin’s mouth made a silent ‘o’. “Thought I’d get you some company. But Kevin—“ Jim caught a handful of the twelve-year old’s jacket and tugged him down to whisper in his ear. “—If I don’t’ show up in an hour, I want you to get everybody out of here. There’s a course plotted for Simula-II, and there’s supposed to be a science station there. Evacuate from there.”

Kevin was already nodding, nearly knocking Jim’s forehead with his nose. “But before you go,” Jim told him sharply, “There’s a yellow button by the door controls. If you have to leave without me, you’ve got to hit that button before liftoff.”

Kevin hesitated. But he didn’t ask, just smiled sickly at Jim. “You got it, Kirk.”

“Cool.” And Jim let him go and took off, trying really hard to trust that nothing would screw up.

When Jim made it back to the crowds, screwing up was inevitable. He ducked between buildings automatically, hiding from the officers while his heart ratcheted into his throat. So many people. So many faces, so many voices, and he didn’t know any of them—nineteen seats to choose and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. How do you choose? What criteria—?

The criteria Kodos used were simple ones—strength and intelligence and computer numbers. ID cards.

Jim was panting, but still not getting any air—and there were just so many people. It wasn’t like any of them magically turned to him and asked to be saved because make no mistake, Jim was doing the saving. He was the only one who could, and it felt like he was the only one who ever did, sometimes. Times like right now.

“Hell,” Jim swore. And then, “Shit. Damn. Fuck.”

He moved, ran into the crowd. Maybe it was just that his body wasn’t used to it—grabbing for hands instead of dodging away from human contact—but he couldn’t seem to grab anyone. They slipped away like fish until someone finally grabbed him and Jim spun around with relief. It _couldn’t_ be his decision after all—

Officer. An officer had him.

Jim’s stomach filled with ice.

“Keep up, young man,” the officer said, steering him forwards. Static fear in Jim’s head and he groped for a phaser that wasn’t there (dammit, he’d given it to Pavel before they left). He tried to squirm free, but the officer’s grip was like iron and Jim’s heart rate went up about a million levels before Jim thought to scream,

“No, lemme go! I’m Jim Kirk!”

Basically a long-shot. He struggled to make the officer look at the ID card brandished in his fist. But Jim knew that if Kodos was interested in saving anyone (from whatever fate was at the end of this march), it would be Tier-1. And Jim’s ID card had labeled him since the genocide began:

_Jim Kirk, Tier-1, superior intelligence and genetic history._

He’d gotten to hate that damn thing what felt like his entire life, and he would never dare take it off.

“Kirk?” The officer repeated. Jim wrenched himself free and took off into the crowd, battering his way forwards. He grabbed at anyone he could now, but they weren’t responding—they shoved him off. Told him to find his parents or get away or that they didn’t have food.

And then suddenly he had someone’s hand and they were saying, “Jim?” And thank heavens, Jim was looking at a familiar face—Dulna, who’d used to run the bakery before there’d been nothing left to bake. Dulna, and then Dulna’s husband beside her, and their adopted daughter. They were searching around Jim. “Where are your friends?”

“Scrapyard,” Jim wheezed, more winded than he’d thought. He gestured. “Go. Run. Safe there.”

“I don’t think…” And Dulna’s husband was pulling his wife away from Jim. Jim dug his heels in, keeping his eyes locked on the older woman’s face.

“Please,” he begged, hissing, about to cry. “Please.” _Please let me save you._

He had no idea what they did, because he heard an officer shout (and you could always tell them by the voice; killing people because the dead wouldn’t eat changed the way you sounded).

He ran, yanking at hands and whispering pleas. People he knew now, people he’d known from before and just hoped were still decent enough that they wouldn’t take advantage of a ship and food guarded by a bunch of children and starved adults. He told Tress and Ignam and Sulli and even Sharpe (in spite of the fact that Sharpe was kind of a bully and had sticky fingers when it came to other people’s things). And he kept telling people, like he had some sort of defect of the brain, even after he’d tallied it up and knew that those people, plus their dear ones were exceeding the nineteen empty seats on that shuttle.

He kept going until his brain was screaming at him— _false hope! Revolt! They will throw the kids of the ship, damn you, Kirk_ —and then he’d turned and was flying back to the scrapyard, gasping and choking and sobbing his guts up. Fuck, he hadn’t cried in weeks. It scared the hell out of him to start again now, because he couldn’t start to lose it. His people needed him, they—

And that was when he saw the officers in the scrapyard.

He froze, feet skidding and slipping in the barren dust, eyes locked on the shuttle. The doors were sealed— _thank you_ , Jim thought, _thank you; thank you_ —but it hadn’t taken off yet. There were people on the ground between the officers and that ship and Jim knew better than to check and see if they were alive. Three officers, with their phasers up.

His kids, without their _weapons_.

“Exit the ship and come out with your hands up,” they were snarling, and Jim was staring with his heart swelling in his throat. “We will fire in the next twenty seconds.”

 _Kevin, Harry, what are you doing?_ He thought, fear sending another outburst of tears down his cheeks. _Why aren’t you going, get the hell out here—_

 _Waiting for me_ , Jim realized. And that shuttle wasn’t going to hold up under phaser fire. It was barely space-worthy—cheap, cobbled together from broken parts and imagination. Jim was only about 90% sure the damn thing would fly when Kevin gunned it, and he was 100% sure that the officers could damage it enough that it wouldn’t hold up under deep space. But Kevin, that idiot, was waiting for Jim to get on board.

And not just Kevin. They all were. They all had to cooperate to—and Jim didn’t think anymore.

“KEVIN RILEY,” he bellowed, spreading his feet and planting them hard into the earth. “YOU STUPID SHITHEAD, GET THEM OUT OF HERE! I’M _TELLING_ YOU!”

The first phaser blast went wide. Jim was already moving, feet pounding on the ground, zigzagging between shots as he rushed the officers. Last ditch effort—they always got surprised when people charged instead of running away. He got some startled screams and the blasts went wide until he was able to drop low and snatch one of the phasers his kids had left.

A blast caught him in the shoulder, and _oh no, it hurt, it hurt so much_. Jim screamed, high and terrible, phaser falling from his sensationless fingers. He struck out with his feet, driving into the shins of one man as the shuttle let out a terrific growl and belched smoke all over the scrapyard. Jim’s insides went so cold he thought he’d been shot again. _It doesn’t work, I didn’t repair it well enough, it can’t fly—_

But then:

The roar of wind pressed him flat to the ground as the propulsion thrusters kicked in. Jim’s shuttle howled its ascension as the officers and the child choked in its wake, half-suffocating with the smoke. Jim was grinning as he coughed, groping on the ground for a weapon. It hurt, but his fingers closed around cool metal and he fired the phaser into the swirling black until screams answered him. There was return fire, but it all assumed he was standing.

Jim kept shooting until the blasts stopped. The smoke had cleared enough for him to see, and that was paradise. The shuttle’s loudness had filled his ears with cotton and the rest of him was numbed with adrenaline and that thing where you got hurt so bad you didn’t feel it anymore. Jim’s left arm was heavy and sticky with blood and there was more of it coming from his side.

Not as bad as the officers, though. Smaller targets and all that. Those guys had holes in them, and they wouldn’t be getting up—Jim would.

Jim stumbled to his feet, clutching the wound in his shoulder. His shuttle was climbing higher fast. Kevin was doing good.

“You got it,” Jim breathed, voice hoarse and shaking. He made himself walk, stumbling deeper into the scrapyard because while his ship was flying, there was something else that wasn’t and Jim was pretty damn sure Kevin hadn’t pressed the yellow button. Fucking idiot.

And yeah, there it was. Completely untouched and unresponsive (although at least it hadn’t shut itself down because Jim had been gone for too long). “Damn it, Kevin,” Jim swore, stumbling his way towards the escape pod.

It had always been a secondary project and Jim was pretty sure it still _wasn’t_ space-worthy, just that it was good enough to get up in the air. He’d loaded the escape shuttle his people were on with all the cloaking tech he could build, but all he’d been able to swing was enough to make the ship look like an oddly specific brand of space noise. Like a reflection.

And when the Alliance (or Kodos; he was thinking more Kodos at the time he started building) was going to be shooting down anything that looked like a _dust mote_ , it would have been great if Kevin had _actually_ launched the ship that was supposed to cast the “reflection” and keep the Alliance forces from making good on their ‘no one leaves Tarsus’ plan.

No choice. Jim would just have to launch the escape pod manually.

He swallowed, and lurched his way to the ship, fumbling with the door controls. Inside, it was—well, at least there were no obvious holes. Jim didn’t think about that and closed the hatch behind himself with shaking fingers. His phaser dropped onto the floor without his noticing it, but really, what was there to notice? This hadn’t ever been meant to carry a human cargo, or even reach a real destination. Just built to help the shuttle get far enough out of reach.

Because the Alliance was going to shoot it out of the sky, _but that didn’t matter so much_ and Jim wasn’t going to think about it.

Jim strapped himself into the pilot’s seat, clenching his jaw and swiping at the stupid tears that kept falling. He got the ship online quickly and talked himself through a very bumpy liftoff—and Goddamnfuck _ow_ , his shoulder, every time it jarred against the seat his vision sparkled out and he came back whimpering. The escape pod responded well to controls, at least, which was good. For a moment, Jim looked down.

Tarsus. Green and brown and gray. So many people milling below, so many memories, and Jim thought that maybe he could have run and hid in the forest after all. He was only nine, but he was smarter than anybody, and resourceful, and he had a lot of phasers—

“Come _on_ ,” Jim hissed to himself, and gunned the throttle. The engines let out a roar that made him wince automatically—speeding up too much was going to eat his fuel—but he just had to remind himself that he wasn’t trying to _reach_ anywhere.

He pressurized the cabin anyway and was inordinately pleased when the computer reported pressure stable, even as he broke Tarsus’s lower atmosphere. _Damn, but I’m good_ , Jim thought, experiencing a moment of giddy happiness. _Genius mechanic_.

Yeah, and the genius had some more calculations to make, since Kevin had forgotten to launch the escape pod. Jim was now behind in his calculated trajectory. If he didn’t get into position, he was going to get them both shot down.

Wiping the last of his tears from his face, Jim focused on the calculations and started to ease the throttle back. He thought he had it about right, but…

What the hell. He flipped open a com link, wondering if this would work, and tried to hail the shuttle. “Hey, Tarsus scum. This is your lord and master; you may grovel before me.”

Nothing but static answered him. Jim mustered a roll of his eyes, and felt slightly better because at least he wasn’t crying anymore.

And then the static hissed out a crackling rendition of Nisk’s incredulous voice, “ _Jim_?”

Jim totally fist-pumped there. “The one and only,” he grinned at the com, unbothered by the fact that the other boy couldn’t see it. “Everybody good up there?”

He heard soft—then hard—laughter and there were shrieks. Happy ones. His eyes closed, something warm in him going sticky—or that might have been his shoulder. He was getting awfully dizzy. “All twenty-nine passengers safe and accounted for,” Kevin informed him proudly and Jim did the math—besides Harry’s people and his people, that was eleven saved. At least some of the people Jim had warned had listened to him.

He blinked back hot, relieved tears and cleared his throat. “Hey, glad to hear it, guys.” And he officially didn’t know what else to say. Like: hey, thanks for taking off without me when I asked you to? I don’t mind at all, and… _Fuck this_. He shook his head clear. “Kevin, you know how to work the scanners?”

There was a moment’s muttering and then Harry’s voice came on, surprisingly gentle (because Harry was not a gentle man—and Jim had a horrible moment where he wondered how much it sounded like he was crying on their comm link), “I know how to use them, Jim. What do you need?”

“You should have a tiny ship in pursuit,” Jim told him. “See it?”

“Yeah,” Harry’s voice was clipped. “S-class escape pod? Another of yours?”

“Got it in one,” Jim assured him. “Now, in the computer there should be calculations of this other ship’s trajectory, based off of yours. It’s really important—“

“Shit!” Kevin gasped into the com. “Jim! Bad news! I forgot to press the yellow button!”

Jim rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Kevin, I’m dealing with that now. Shut up.”

“I’m sorry—“

There was a sound that Jim assumed was Harry elbowing Kevin to shut him up. Jim rolled his eyes again. “Jim, you were saying?”

“I need you to see if the trajectories match up,” Jim told him. “And if they don’t, tell me what corrections I need to get an interception.”

“23 meters northwest,” Harry relayed. Jim compensated, biting his lip as he navigated. The throttle had decided to stick now of all moments. _Screw you, too_ , Jim thought generously, and kicked at the bottom of his console in frustration when it jerked him too far to the left. “11 meters higher altitude.” Jim argued with the controls a bit more. “Too far—“ And Harry gave him more coordinates. Jim started to swear softly as he tried to pilot for the first time.

(This was so not like how he’d read it in the beginner’s manual. Well, what he’d read of the beginner’s manual. He’d been forced to give it back before the officer noticed it was gone. But he’d needed it to repair the ships, so it had been worth the risk.)

And he was grateful for that experience now. Or he would be, you know, if this ship WOULD ACTUALLY LISTEN TO HIM.

“There, stop,” Harry ordered. “Maintain course.”

“Kay,” Jim breathed, relaxing into the chair. Every time he eased up, he felt like his strings were cut a little more. Pretty soon, he wasn’t going to—

_Stop thinking about it doesn’t matter just focus on what you need_

“Good. Keep an eye on it for me.”

They were leaving the planet’s atmosphere entirely now. Jim adjusted helm controls to dim the viewscreen before it blinded him. He held his breath, waiting to see it. He actually heard it before he saw it, over the com link.

“Holy crap,” he heard Rurah whisper. “It’s been—“

 _So long_ , Jim thought, as pitch black appeared on his viewscreen. It was the pinpricks of white he liked best. Jim had always loved the stars. Always felt like that was the one place he belonged, between the pinpricks of white. “Enjoying the view, guys?” He asked.

“Shit,” Ejeihn’k said, voice thick with emotion. “I thought… I never thought I’d… Not _ever again_.”

“Yeah,” Jim agreed softly. His hand—the one not attached to a useless arm—had reached out to press against the viewscreen. He felt the ship thrum against him, somehow not exploding or imploding or whatever else he’d assumed his crappy escape pod would do. Maybe it was weird, but he was suddenly incredibly thankful for this. Last seconds, spent here. The stars before him, and his friends all around him.

“Shit,” Kevin croaked. “Jim. Jim, you should _be_ here.”

Jim realized with a sort of dull horror that Kevin had started to cry.

“Jim?” Harry’s voice filtered in, far too gently to do anything but make Jim’s eyes prickle up again. To distract himself, he tore a strip out of his shirt (had to make two tries before he got a decent amount; no clue why, because usually either of his shirts acted like they were made of tissue paper) and tried to tie off the injuty in his arm. The pain made him dizzy and sharp at once, and he heard himself making soft, frightened noises of weakness and pain because _it hurt, it hurt, it hurt_ and he—

He was crying again.

“Jim, are you in that other ship?” Harry asked quietly.

“Yeah,” Jim replied, because there wasn’t much of a point in lying now. “I can kind of see you guys, even.”

“You’re coming with us to Simula!” Kevin burst out. And there was noise that followed that—sure as hell—Jim smiled at Pavel’s outburst especially.

“Hi Jim! Hi, Jim, hi, cann you hear me? I kneew you vere coming!”

Alpha all but snarled, “Tell us that **earlier** , you asshole—“

“Sorry,” Jim said, making himself laugh a little because that made it sound less like he’d started sobbing. “Can’t make it this time. But you guys have a good time without me, alright?”

It was so silent that for a moment he thought the worst—the Alliance wasn’t fooled, had fired—but then Harry’s voice came on and Jim just realized that they’d all gone so quiet he couldn’t hear. “What do you need, Jim?” Harry asked. “Just say the word.”

Jim blinked at his console for a moment. That wasn’t the kind of thing you said when it was every man for himself and everybody was going to starve. But Jim kind of got it—they were all one group now. He’d made them be. A group of twenty-nine… That had to be the biggest group Tarsus had ever produced.

Jim smiled a little. His arm was going so cold, but in his stomach, he was all warm, like he’d had a full, hot meal. All of a sudden he was sure that he could trust everybody on his shuttle.

And he told Harry with the same affection in his voice as he might use with Keggs or Nisk, “Just—everybody keep safe, alright? And be careful with the food and water.” This part came harder, but he knew he didn’t have to be scared, so he said it. “Share with each other. Because I—“ _I couldn’t build ships for everybody, I didn’t save everybody_ “—I just need to know you’re safe.” _Need to know that no one else dies._

“Sure thing.” Harry even sounded kind of choked up now, and Jim heard audible sobbing, but he wasn’t sure if it was his own mouth or his kids’. “What else? Name it.”

“When you make it to Simula,” Jim said, hearing his voice shake because scanners had just picked up two large, unidentified vessels in Tarsus airspace and he knew that they weren’t Fleet in the pit of his stomach. “If you—if you talk about me. To explain to, I don’t know, people who don’t suck.”

“Jim,” he heard moaned into the com and he realized after a moment it was Alpha. He was about sobbing his guts up. “Come with us. Why can’t you—just think of something! That’s what you do! Think of it and _fix it_ , Jim—“

“D-don’t tell them my name,” Jim said, squeezing his eyes shut as still more tears burned their way out. Thick, heavy sobs were in his chest, shaking his entire body, thrusting his mauled shoulder back into the pilot’s seat until he was panting and sick with agony. “Don’t use my name,” he said again, because all he can think of was _James Tiberius Kirk_ and _Tier-1_ and no, that wasn’t what he wanted. Not _ever_.

“What do you want to be called?” Harry asked, and Jim opened his eyes as the enemy ship cane into view. It blurred with his tears like a mirage, and his hands shook at the console not because he was in pain, but because every bone in his body was screaming to _run, evade_ , and _survive_.

But not this time, fucker. He was going to protect them with all he’s got and maintain fucking course and it was dangerous to have communications open right now, no matter how well he’d hidden the shuttle.

“Tell them I was just a ghost,” Jim finally said. “Call me Ghost.”

And then he switched the com link off and it was over. He thought to take off the ID card and slapped it down with a wet laugh.  Jim grinned fierce at the enemy ships and recorded it in this little chunk of history:

_Stardate: 2236.7. Last bastion of Starfleet in the Alpha Quadrant falls. Alliance domination complete, world fucked; but on the positive side, Kodos is as fucked as the rest of us._

_And a ghost managed to save 29 people out from under the collective noses of Klingons, Romulans, and bastard humans. Take that, universe, and shove it._

He passed out before the Alliance began to fire on him, and the stars burned in his eyelids.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a PROLOGUE.  
> Prooooloooooguuueeee.  
> As in, this is not the end of the story. There are more upsetting things to follow.  
> And if you liked this, you should keep reading.  
> Kaybye.


End file.
